Show Don’t Tell
The Advice Everyone Gives and Nobody Explains
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Everybody said it. Nobody said what it meant. BUY FROM INGRAMSPARKAMAZONKOBOREAD A CHAPTERTABLE OF CONTENTS 158 pages · Paperback ISBN 978-1-946458-55-1 · ebook ISBN 978-1-946458-94-0 |
| 158Pages | 21Chapters | 100+Before and after examples | 1Piece of advice, finally explained |
Everybody said it. Nobody said what it meant.
You’re telling too much. I heard that constantly, from workshops and editors and other writers, and not once did anybody explain what it meant to do instead.
It seemed obvious that writing Sally felt angry was easier than describing her so a reader works it out. It’s also shorter. So what exactly is wrong with it, and does the alternative not just take more words?
Telling is handing the reader your conclusions. Mark was nervous about the job interview. Showing is handing them the evidence: Mark’s palms left damp prints on his resume as he shuffled the papers for the third time, and the receptionist’s smile felt like a spotlight.
The first reports. The second lets the reader reach the conclusion themselves. That’s the only way a reader ever believes anything. Telling inserts you, the writer, between the reader and the story. This book is the explanation nobody gave me.
| Telling | Showing | |
|---|---|---|
| What it hands the reader | Your conclusions | The evidence |
| Example | Mark was nervous about the job interview. | Mark’s palms left damp prints on his resume as he shuffled the papers for the third time. |
| What the reader does | Receives a report | Reaches the conclusion themselves |
What is inside Show Don’t Tell?
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The distinction
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Techniques
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Dialogue
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Common failures
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Who should read Show Don’t Tell?
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Read it if
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Not for you if
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Why did I write Show Don’t Tell?
Richard Lowe, the Writing King
I’ve written 113+ books under my own name and ghostwritten 54+ more, and I spent years being told I was telling too much without anyone explaining the fix. This is the explanation I had to assemble myself, with the examples I wish somebody had shown me.
► Behind the Book: Show Don’t Tell
How this one got written, what went wrong, and what got cut.
► Dave Could See That Jim Was Hurt. What Does That Even Mean?
One story from behind this book.
What do people ask about Show Don’t Tell?
Also in Writing
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Turning an Archive Into a Book That Holds |
Give the reader the evidence
They’re better at drawing conclusions than you think.
BUY FROM INGRAMSPARKAMAZONKOBOREAD A CHAPTERTABLE OF CONTENTS
Paperback and ebook.
A chapter
Show Don’t Tell
“The emotion, the ecstasy of love, we cannot describe, but we can repeat the words and cadences in which we find it.”, Robert Frost
Rachel’s romance novel had been rejected with surgical precision: “Maya feels like an emotional robot following romance software. She announces she’s falling in love, but I can’t feel it happening. Neither will readers.”
Two years crafting this manuscript. The scene that had triggered this literary execution was supposed to be her book’s beating heart. Maya’s realization that she’s falling for the architect renovating her grandmother’s Victorian house:
Maya suddenly realized she was falling in love with Jake. The overwhelming feeling hit her as she watched him work on the kitchen cabinets. Her heart raced with nervous excitement mixed with terror. This was dangerous. She’d sworn off men after her brutal divorce, but the attraction was completely undeniable.
Reading it now felt like reviewing a patient chart. Subject exhibits elevated cardiovascular activity and conflicted romantic impulses. Recommend observation for further emotional developments.
Rachel had been writing love like a medical examiner documenting symptoms. Her protagonist wandered through scenes broadcasting emotional weather updates: Currently experiencing attraction with scattered feelings of nervousness and high probability of romantic complications.
But three weeks before her deadline, hunched over romance novels that had kept her reading past sunrise, Rachel discovered the architecture that separated published authors from everyone else fighting for representation.
Those writers weren’t announcing emotions. They were engineering experiences that hijacked readers’ nervous systems and forced visceral participation.
Table of contents
Show Don’t Tell
- What’s The Difference?
- What’s Telling?
- What’s Showing?
- Showing Character Description
- Strong Verbs
- Telling In Dialog
- Showing Using Dialog
- Emotions
- Avoid Info Dumps
- Use All The Senses
- Showing Setting and Atmosphere
- Showing Through Point of View
- Interiority: The Character’s Inner World
- Showing Character Change
- When Showing Goes Wrong
- Purple Prose
- Genre Applications: Show Don’t Tell Across Fiction Types
- Finding and Fixing Telling in Your Draft
- Appendix B: An Annotated Scene
- Appendix: Research Resources for Writers
- Conclusions